EXT2Rob

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The charger you have is not appropriate for LiPo, you need a new charger. But they can be had for as little as $50.

Depending on what charger and battery you get, you may indeed need to do some soldering. Have much experience with that? If not, find some 12ga speaker wire and practice soldering with that until you get comfortable. You'll need a 35-40Watt iron and some rosin-core solder. Look up "how to solder" on YouTube.

What he meant by 50- and 80W "flavours" is that they can charge a pack at a max power output of 50Watts, or 80Watts, depending on the charger. Typically a 50W charger will have a max charge current capability of 5Amps. The 80W version will do 6Amps. What is the difference? The 80W charger will charge a given pack a little faster than the 50W version.

For your Rustler, a typical Lipo pack would be 5000mah (that's 5000 milli-amp-hours) 2S (two cell). The "mah" figure is an indication of how long a pack will last, or "run time". A 5000mah 2S 30C Lipo will set you back about $45. Oh, you noticed that other spec? The 30C thing. That's an indicator of how much current (amps) a pack can deliver. A 5000mah Lipo pack rated at 60C is supposed to provide more power than a pack rated at 30C. That is why you see a difference in prices between what look like the same pack. Different C-Ratings. Oh, the "2S" thing? Number of cells in the pack. 3S = three cells, and so on.

So what charger do you get? Figure out what battery you want. (Gens Ace are good and less pricey than say Traxxas. SMC also make good packs.) Say you go with a 5000mah 30C pack. You would want a charger capable of charging that battery at 5 Amps. (5000mah charging at 5 Amps is called a "1C charge rate") But what if you bought a 7200mah pack? You'd still want to charge it at a 1C rate, so you'd need a charger capable of charging at at least 7 Amps (7.2 Amps to be precise). See how that works? Now, it doesn't hurt a battery to charge it at less than 1C, and you can charge some packs at a 2C rate (if so stated). I have not found a charger yet that is capable of charging at greater than 6 Amps without needing an external DC power supply. Charging a 5000mah pack at 5 Amps takes about 45min. A 7200mah will take over an hour. So that's where charging at higher amperage can save you a little time, at the possible cost of overall pack life. (The more a pack is stressed, the shorter its useful life) Charging at 1C is easiest on the packs, and setting your Low-Voltage Cut-off in the ESC to 3.2V per cell will help the packs last too. AND, ALWAYS Storage Charge your Lipos when done for the day. This function charges/discharges the pack to its "resting voltage" of 3.80V per cell. Where the cell chemistry "likes to be". Leaving Lipos charged will significantly shorten their useful life.